Instead, I propose flywheels! You put a flywheel in a vacuum, suspend it with electromagnets, and spin it up. Much more efficient energy storage than batteries, much lower maintenance, and less harmful waste. For a small sailboat, I suspect some sort of gimbaling system would be in order, otherwise you'd lose a lot of energy to gyroscopic precession. Also not sure what sort of weight we're talking about.

Still, that would be a sustainable yacht project I'd like to see.

On the other had, with gyroscopic stabilization, you could do away with any ballast. I wonder if it's ever been tried?

What do you mean when you define sustainable. Sustainable in its pure form to me means one can carry on doing it forever without any external input. Well, clearly a yacht sailing around the world does not fit that definition because God knows, I pour vast resources into my boat just to keep it functional and I'm no different to most.

If sustainable means that you start off by pouring a mountain of money into a boat and hope that it lasts until you die and don't have to replace anything, then I don't buy the theory. That's like everyone starting life as a billionaire and dying with nothing. Everbody knows that is anti-reality.

OK so realistic sustainability means that we have to continually put some resource into the game but we're going to strive to do that as little as possible and be as green as possible. Well, no secret there - yachtsmen the world over have been doing that for centuries. Some just do it better than others but we all strive for that goal.

But is there a thesis in there somewhere? I think the OP's challenge is going to be making it sound complicated enough - which it isn't.

OK so realistic sustainability means that we have to continually put some resource into the game but we're going to strive to do that as little as possible and be as green as possible. Well, no secret there - yachtsmen the world over have been doing that for centuries. Some just do it better than others but we all strive for that goal.

But is there a thesis in there somewhere? I think the OP's challenge is going to be making it sound complicated enough - which it isn't.

The other challenge will be, as you say, striving to put as few resources in as possible and be as green as possible, which I haven't seen much of in their original plan.

What about a system like what some busses have (and F1 race cars), where energy is stored mechanically in some sort of coil, then released for propulsion?

Not that I am an afficionado on F1 race cars but I have never heard of such a device being used on them. I know that the driver empties his pockets to reduce weight before he gets into the car so this concept is quite original (to me anyway).

Given the concept is used in most hybrid motor cars, it is not that new but how would you do that in a boat?

Maybe sth like a disk flywheel. Its also used in some public transport buses for saving energy.

Here is a little update so far:

The yacht will be a charter yacht for 6 persons. The aspect of sharing is more reasonable, and a high building cost doesn't weight that high with a charter yacht.
-therefore it will be a catamaran, since there is a lot more space
- right now we think a lot about the energy problem: a solution seems to be a fuel cell; it has a far higher energy density than batteries or fuel, and is completely without emissions. A fuel cell (in combination with solar panels) could obtain enough energy for a 1-2 week turn. The hydrogen needed could be carried in pressure tanks or bounded in a special granulate (which is safer).
even issues like the cooking gas could be solved with hydrogen.
- an idea was to create the hydrogen needed at the charter base; at the marina could be a device which gets hydrogen through electrolyse (you only need salt water, 2 electrodes and electrical power for it). the power could come from wind generators or from water or wind powerplants near the marina.
- we still stick to the wing sails, and therefore are in contact with two engineers. One from Boeing who helped creating one of the Alinghi Americas Cup yachts, and the other from the HSVA, a German institute for hydro and aerodynamic research.

- we still stick to the wing sails, and therefore are in contact with two engineers. One from Boeing who helped creating one of the Alinghi Americas Cup yachts, and the other from the HSVA, a German institute for hydro and aerodynamic research.

I would think that a wing sail ala-Americas Cup on a cruising sailboat is a really bad idea.

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